Casino Lab - Player’s account closure ignored and funds confiscated.

I have been using this site for gambling not knowing that they do not hold a UK Gambling Commission licence.

I have an addiction problem and I contacted their live chat to request account closure. They told me I had to email this request, which I did. My request was ignored.

I submitted another email request, explaining I had an addiction and required immediate account closure. This was also ignored. As were subsequent further email requests.

this left my account open, and as an addict, I continued to spend money on this site.

i reached out to the live chat for help several times and was told they could not help me, send an email.

I asked to escalate to complaint, I was told to use the SAME email address I had been ignored many times! I said as much and was told basically tough, they can’t help.

I asked to speak to a manager. I was told that was impossible.

I went on to spent a further £1000 after requesting account closure on top of what I had previously spent.

I reached out for help many, many times and was ignored for weeks.

they eventually did close my account but ignored all requests for a refund. I have tried resolver and escalating to IBAS - they can’t help.

move messaged casino lab directly, I have again been ignored. I have even tried to reach out to ‘Max’ at Digika - a Senior Affiliate Manager as they run the casino from what I could see…. Again I have had nothing back.

I don’t know where else to go with this.

please, please help me.

Dear Player,

Thank you very much for submitting your complaint. I’m sorry to hear about your negative experience with Casino Lab.

Please allow me to ask you a few questions so I can better understand the situation.

• Could you please advise when your account was closed?
• Could you please share your self-exclusion requests with me? Please share the information with my email at tomas@casino.guru
• Could you please advise when was the last time the casino allowed you to deposit?
• Has the casino responded to your refund request at all? Could you please share what they replied?

In the meantime, check other resources and information in our responsible gambling guide found here: https://casino.guru/responsible-gambling-guide

Thank you very much in advance for your reply.

Best regards,

Tomas

Please note that Casino.Guru will never ask for any payments or request access to your accounts. If anyone claims to be Casino.Guru personnel and asks for such actions, do not provide any information.

The only legitimate way we will contact you is through this official complaint platform or via the email addresses provided in your complaint thread.

Stay cautious and contact us directly if you have any doubts.

Hi Tomas

i replied to your email link including all the evidence and information you requested.

Can you please confirm receipt of this as the status of my complaint still reads that you are awaiting a response from me.

thanks

Thanks for your patience.

Could you please explain when you sent this email (screenshot below) to the casino?

Would you be able to forward the original email to me instead of sending a screenshot?

Looking forward to your reply.

Hi

this was a screenshot of a message I sent on the platform and as they have closed my account (finally) I can no longer access this.

however this was sent 10/04/2025 according to the screenshot I took at the time

thanks

claire

I do have many emails asking for account closure and removal from marketing though if you want those?

Thanks for your patience.

You may send those emails, as well as evidence. My email is tomas@casino.guru

Could you please explain when the casino closed your account?

When was the last time the casino allowed you to deposit?

Hi

I have just forwarded 6 emails to you - none of which I had any response from casino lab.

my last deposit was in May 2025.

Thank you very much, Gizmo1981, for providing the necessary information. I will now transfer your complaint to my colleague Matej (matej.l@casino.guru) who will be at your service. I wish you the best of luck and hope the problem will be resolved to your satisfaction in the near future.

Many thanks for all of your help Tomas

Hello Gizmo1981, nice to meet you!

My name is Matej, and I will be assisting you with this case. I'll do my best to help you resolve this issue as soon as possible.

I’d like to invite a representative of Casino Lab to join the conversation and participate in the investigation of this case as well. Could you possibly provide additional information regarding the issue with self-exclusion and clarify the situation? I would also appreciate if the casino could provide us with any and all relevant evidence. Any sensitive information or internal system files can be shared with me directly by e-mail matej.l@casino.guru.

Thank you for your patience and cooperation in advance.

Do I have to re send everything again?

I have already sent literally everything to your colleague Tomas

As the original message states:

 I would also appreciate if the casino could provide us with any and all relevant evidence. 

All the proof sent by you has been uploaded amongst the case files by my colleague Tomáš, and I have already reviewed it myself, to get familiarised with the case. :)

I’m so sorry Matej, I misread your message.

apologies…..

Dear Gizmo1981,

We would kindly like to apologize for the delay and any inconvenience this may cause.

Please be assured that we are working with high priority on your case.

We will inform you with further updates as soon as possible.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Best regards,

Casino Lab team

Dear Matej, 

We would like to inform you that an email has been sent to you, which contains the attached evidences.

We will await your update with appreciation.

Kind regards,

CasinoLab team.  

I can confirm receiving the message and before I post an update, I have requested additional information regarding this case. So far it seems like the system had a delay in receiving the message that could prove problematic.

Hello Matej, 

We have relied to your email. We will wait for your update. 

Kind regards, 

CasinoLab team. 

I have requested additional information from the CasinoLab team, and will update on the whole situation once received.

Hello Matej, 

Thank you for your correspondence.

We have responded to your email and will await your update.

Kind regards, 

CasinoLab team. 

I would like to thank the CasinoLab team for provided evidence and further details. While I can't share these publicly as the evidence consists of internal casino files, I can share my findings.

Dear Gizmo1981, from the e-mail and live chat conversation it is clear you have wanted to close the account since March, however never provided a reason for the closure, that was asked for by the casino. On one occasion the account has been closed as requested, but as it was not closed due to a gambling addiction, you were able to re-open this account later.

The real self-exclusion request that is mentioning gambling addiction has been sent on 10th April, but unfortunately the casino system did not register it until the 16th April. After checking cashier and playthrough history, even if the casino acknowledges 10th April as the original date of self-exclusion request (which I hope they will), the only refundable deposits made within the time the account should have been already closed, is 120GBP. I have inquired with the casino whether they will be willing to refund this amount, and once I get the response, will provide an update in this thread.

no Player should HAVE to provide a reason for wanting to close their account.

I have also closed my accounts with other casinos without having to to provide a reason. It is my choice to close the account and therefore just not have to provide any justification for this as this is my personal account with them.

The fact that I have an issue, I should not have to disclose this as a justification to close my account. If I request for the closure, this should be adhered to as is my right.

This is an excuse by them for not having to provide a refund following my original request - that went ignored for a significant amount of time.

Dear Gizmo1981, you are totally correct in the following statement:

no Player should HAVE to provide a reason for wanting to close their account.

However, for the purposes of gambling addiction and self-exlusion this information is vital. Let me explain why:

• Normally, when asking for an account closure and not stating the reason, you have an option of simply stop playing. It's the same as if you had a bad experience in a restaurant and stopped going there for your meals. In all of these cases, it is assumed that the plyer is fully capable of making decisions for themselves, and they play only because they want to and can stop at any time. Nothing forces them to spend more money in the casino, so anything that is deposited between the request of account closure and the actual closure, is not enforceable. It is sad that many casinos takes time in dealing with such requests, but there is a reason for this. Many players who incur hefty loss, request an immediate account closure, just to ask for it to be reopened few days later, once they cool down. All this creates unnecessary workload for the casino admin team, that already deals with hundreds of requests daily. So as much as the casinos can seemingly ignore the account closure request, the same way you could simply ignore the account and not deposit/play there. If you don't have a gambling problem, an open casino account should not be a problem to ignore.
• Now if the player asks for an account closure and clearly states they have a gambling problem - this is completely different story. Gambling addicts are not in control of their own compulsive behaviour, and can spend all their money in the casino and ruin their lives. They can't help themselves and the compulsion can strike anytime. That is why such cases neds to be taken care of with utmost importance and care. In such cases account should be closed ASAP (or at least the options for depositing and playing games should be disabled) so the player is safe. If the casino ignores such urgent request and allows the player to keep depositing and losing money even longer - before finally closing the account - in such cases we believe the player is entitled for their deposits to be returned (minus any winnings withdrawn in the meantime) if those deposits happened after the reasonable time for closing the account has passed.

Hopefully this helps you to understand the situation much better, and shows why it is important to state the reason for the account closure. If you have any more questions or disagreements, I will be more than happy to discuss them.

Dear Gizmo1981,

We have reviewed Matej's recommendation and have reached the decision to proceed with assisting you further regarding a refund of 120 GBP.

Therefore, we have sent an email to you requesting for your payment details. 

Kindly provide your payment details at your earliest convenience, so that we may proceed and furnish you with an update as soon as possible.

Thank you for being so patient with us! We really appreciate it.

Kind regards, 

CasinoLab team. 

This is great news, and I would like to thank the CasinoLab team for this decision!

Dear Gizmo1981, please let us know once you provide the payment details to the casino, so I can keep track of the case. :)

I provided the details yesterday.

although I have also stated I disagree entirely with the amount offered as a refund

i sought to close my account t a long time ago and was ignored. You know all of the details. To not offer to compensate even half of the amount I feel should be refunded find highly offensive, the emotional distress and reasons stated to them - even though I do not agree with having to disclose something so personal to justify closing my OWN account, is ridiculous.

Dear Gizmo1981, thank you for the confirmation.

I am sorry you feel this way. While I agree you do not have to provide the reason for the account closure, I have also explained the reasoning in my previous post, so I won't copy/paste it here again.

While we take self-exclusion cases very seriously and do our best to help the players, we can't put 100% of the responsibility on the casinos. If a player is addicted to gambling and wants help, the least they can do is acknowledge it. If they can't even do that small step, we can't do more.

As there is not much else left, I will swap the timer your way. Please, let me know once you receive the refund, then I will close this complaint as "rejected" - since we do not consider cases where the players are not satisfied with the result of our mediation, as successfully "resolved".

Matej

whilst I very much appreciate all of your help and support in relation to this issue, I very much disagree that it is not the casino responsibility to close my account after I asked them to repeatedly and was ignored.

the onus is entirely on them. I have provided multiple emails and messages as proof that I repeatedly contacted them to request my account be closed, this was ignored for many many weeks.

the responsibility for this remaining open lies entirely with them - this is irrespective of my reasons for requesting this. They should have closed my account as requested, when requested.

Alright. Let's go this route then and assume the casino was ignoring your requests on purpose and had no intention of closing your account. In that case, why did you continue playing in a casino you clearly don't want to play in? Why didn't you just stop? Or log out and block the website? You had all these options. I personally have still couple of accounts from my days of playing online video games. These accounts are still open and available for me to come back and renew my paid subscription - I just simply don't, as I am no longer interested. Same applies here. Casino had no reason to suspect you having any issues, therefore closure of the account - whether instant or not - is irrelevant. All this time you could simply stop and never come back. You continued playing by choice. Had they known you are a gambling addict and fail to act immediately, that would be a different story. Because addicts can't just stay away from an open casino account and eventually they give in and gamble again. And if you have a gambling problem, then why have you not told them immediately? To get help and close the account ASAP a simple sentence stating you are addicted to gambling would suffice. But as I mentioned before: all we ask from players to admit the problem, then we do the rest. If no problem is admitted, we have no leverage and it is assumed the player continues playing by choice.

I hope this additional explanation helps to clarify the situation to the full extent.

Dear Gizmo1981, could you please let me know once you receive the refund? Thank you very much.

Hi

nothing as yet.

I will update you asap

thanks

Still nothing…..

I provided them with my details almost a week ago

Thank you for letting me know.

Dear CasinoLab team, could you please let us know what stage is the refund in, or whether there is some more information needed? Thank you very much.

Dear Gizmo1981,

We checked with the relevant team and we could see there the details you provided is not completely correct.

Therefore, we have sent another email with an example, requesting you to please send the correct details so we can proceed further accordingly.

We are waiting for your details

Best regards,  

CasinoLab team. 

I have re provided my details, thanks

Thank you both for quickly dealing with the issue at hand. Dear CasinoLab team, please let us know once the payment has been processed on your end, or if there are further issues. Thank you.

Hi Matej

£119 has been paid today

Dear Gizmo1981,

I am glad to hear that the refund has arrived at last, and would like to thank Casino Lab Team for looking into this matter. However, since you are dissatisfied with the overall outcome, I'll go ahead and mark the complaint as 'rejected' in our system. I appreciate your cooperation and am truly sorry I was not able to be of more help. Please, do not hesitate to contact us if you run into any issues with this or any other casino in the future.

I would also strongly recommend installing free app BetBlocker (https://betblocker.org/de/) onto your computer and mobile device, to keep you safe from online gambling sites while browsing the internet. It's free, so you have nothing to lose. It is also recommended to have a family member or a trusted friend to set up a password in your stead, to maximise the safety while online.

Best regards,

Matej

Casino.Guru